Tesla’s solar panels and the Powerwall energy storage will be available at Home Depot stores, while Lowe’s is apparently in talks with Tesla to sell these products too.

Tesla Solar Panels & Powerwall

During the first half of this year, some 800 Home Depot locations will receive Tesla solar displays with Tesla employees on hand to talk about what’s on offer.

Currently there is no word about Solar Roof products, which is still in its market launch infancy.

Several years ago, Home Depot was engaged in solar business with SolarCity, which later came to an end, but now will reborn under the Tesla brand with different rules, as Tesla hopes to sell, not lease the products.

Only time will tell whether this form of selling solar installation and energy storage works out in Tesla’s favor.

“Tesla says the new Home Depot kiosks will be staffed by Tesla energy specialists capable of recommending what combination of electricity storage units and solar panels will work best for a customer. The guidance will be based on using a home address to pull up satellite imagery that can estimate sunlight, shading and other rooftop factors.

Customers will be able to receive a customized quote as well as arrange for a free at-home consultation.”

No, because they are f-in annoying! All the Tesla fans say how wonderful it is that they don’t have to buy a car from a traditional car dealership with all the aggressive sales sharks, but all Tesla is doing is taking their sales sharks from the dealership floor and dumping them in Home Depot, making your shopping experience there just like stepping on a car lot.

Me too!! Those solar sales people are so damn annoying! I’m in Home Depot all the time and it’s like refugee car salesman have crept in the building. If I want to know about solar, I’ll go find out about solar, otherwise, piss off!

The fastest way to get them out of your face politely, is to just immediately tell them you are renter and don’t own a home. They will drop you and avoid you for the rest of your time in the store. The people here that think having Tesla people harass us in HD instead of the old sharks is a great idea, don’t work on their home much and probably never go in Home Depot.

But they are still pretty pricey compared to alternatives, and that price is still aimed at an exclusive niche market. It will be interesting to see if Home Depot continues the deal with Tesla on a long-term basis. Here’s hoping that Tesla’s solar panels, which actually look like solar panels, will sell better and will make those Home Depot kiosks more profitable for both Tesla and Home Depot.

In principle, this sounds like a great idea. But have you been in a Home Depot? The people who work there (at least in my town) are low-paid tech-illiterates. They can’t even negotiate their own company’s internal computer system, much less serve customers with already-installed solar panel arrays (that would be me) with questions about their energy storage options. I am dubious about Home Depot’s ability to handle this business.

“For our example home, the solar roof would actually generate only about 70% of the energy that the solar panels could.”

At close to twice the cost. Not mentioned is that heat lowers the efficiency of all solar panels and the Tesla shingles cannot dissipate heat as well as the solar panels which have air underneath them. That will lower the Tesla solar shingles efficiency even further during the sunniest, hottest period when people are banking their excess energy for the winter.